How to know you’ve been infected by man-centered theology:
If you sing songs like:
“You didn’t want heaven without us / So Jesus, you brought heaven down.”
God is not needy. There is no lack in God. God didn’t create us because He was lonely and needed some company. He created us to share His goodness, not because it met His emotional need:
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom. 11:33-36)
“Like a rose trampled on the ground / You took the fall / And thought of ME/ Above all.”
Actually, no. Jesus had in mind the glory of the Father above all:
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:27-28)
“You make everything glorious / And I am Yours / What does that make ME?”
Worship is supposed to be to God and about God, not to me and about me. “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory,” (Psalm 115:1.)
“We crown you (Jesus) Lord of all.”
Wait…WE do WHAT?! We don’t give Jesus permission to be King! See Phil. 2:10-11. Jesus is King over all of existence, and every knee will bow and every tongue will eventually acknowledge this fact. We can submit to His Lordship (rather than rebelling against it), but at no point do we ever “make Jesus Lord.”
As A.W. Tozer rightfully noted, “Christians don’t tell lies. They just go to church and sing them.”
We are so deeply infected with a man-centered gospel, we don’t even see the Humanistic infiltration into our worship songs, sermons, Christian bumper stickers, etc. (i.e. “God is my co-pilot.” 🙄 If God is your co-pilot, you aren’t saved!)
Even how we’ve been taught to present the gospel: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!” As Paul Washer has wisely noted, this sounds good to Hedonistic Americans! They think, “Wow! That’s great, because I also love me and have a wonderful plan for my life! God and I will get along great!”
I’m so grieved by the state of our Evangelical Disaster (to borrow a phrase from Francis Schaeffer), I can barely express it. What makes it worse is most Christians don’t realize they are deep-fried in man-centered theology, and they’ll even defend it as being Biblical. We need to learn a proper understanding of the doctrine of God before we will understand anything else correctly. Until this becomes the central focus of our preaching, we will not see revival in our churches or our land.
Israel Wayne is an author and conference speaker. He is the Director of Family Renewal, LLC and Site Editor for ChristianWorldview.net.